


Things Are Never Black And White

by EmilyoftheDrums



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Music, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1325125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilyoftheDrums/pseuds/EmilyoftheDrums
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor walks in on the Master playing piano, a talent no one else knew he had. However, the Master gets angry and overreacts.. A lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Are Never Black And White

The Master had a piano in his room. He'd asked the TARDIS to put it there, shortly after he had been caught following the Year That Never Was, and she had obliged. Something the Master was eternally grateful for. 

The Doctor didn't know he could play. Nobody did. But for him, music was an escape from the torturous rhythm in his head, the endless 1234 of the drums. Music temporarily drowned them out, made then quieter, less important. A brief break from the soul-crushing oppression of his own mind. 

He sat down, hearing the familiar small creak of the piano stool, and pushed the lid up, revealing 84 smooth ivory keys in a zebra-stripe pattern. An instrument was a beautiful thing, he thought. 

The Master ran his hands up and down a couple of octaves in a steady C major scale before pausing to think for a few seconds and launching into a Gallifreyan song, one he'd known since he was only a baby. 

His hands danced on the keys in a flowing stream of perfect notes, one after the other in beautiful harmony. The tune changed into a complex series of staccato bursts, fingers jumping briefly onto a key before moving, changing to another, and another, over and over so the music swelled and rose in a cascade of singing notes. 

Then the door creaked. 

The song cut off abruptly as the Master stood up faster than he cold have believed possible to angrily face the source of the creaking noise. The Doctor was standing with a grin on his face that seemed half proud, half nostalgic. 

Putting as much venom as he could manage into his voice, the Master spat  
"And what are YOU doing here?! I swear I will rip your throat out if you come in here again!"

The Doctor's grin turned smug.  
"But it's so hard to take any threat you deliver even slightly seriously when I've just heard you playing as beautifully as that." 

The Master felt a small swell of pride at the fact that the Doctor liked his playing, but he squashed it quickly and returned to anger.  
"If you don't leave right now, the only thing I'm going to be playing is football. With your head." It was a terrible threat and he knew it. But under the circumstances, it was the best he could do. 

"I still can't take you seriously, Koschei." The Doctor's grin grew wider and smugger with every passing second. 

"DON'T. Call. Me. Koschei."

"Why not, the name seems to suit my little piano-playing darling very well."

Rassilon, the Doctor could be infuriating when he wanted to be. 

"Come on, start playing again!"

"Not a chance." The Master shut the piano lid and moved closer to the Doctor, rage and humiliation in his eyes. Maybe he was overreacting, but right now he didn't care. He just wanted to wipe the grin off the Doctor's face. He grabbed his wrist, opening a telepathic link and flooding his mind with a cacophony of sound, ranging from his own drumbeat to the song he'd been playing to the Doctor's tortured screams from the Year That Never Was to everything good and terrible in between.

It certainly had the desired effect. The Doctor snapped his eyes shut, twisting his arm away and clutching at his head, groaning in pain. 

The Master crouched next to him.  
"And that, my dear Doctor, is why you never interrupt me while I'm playing. You wanted to hear me, so I gave you the sounds of the universe. Happy yet?"

The Doctor groaned weakly from the floor.  
"Kosch.. Please help.. Please.." 

The Master slapped him round the face.  
"I told you, DON'T call me Koschei! Or Kosch or Kos or any other ridiculous nickname you can think of. I, Doctor, I am the Master. And you will address me as so."

The Doctor protested without much effort before attempting to speak again.  
"Master.. Help.."

"Certainly, Doctor." He pulled him up and dragged him over to the bed, dumping him unceremoniously onto it and placing his fingertips on the Doctor's temples. Closing his eyes, he slipped into his mindscape. 

Inside the mind of the younger Time Lord was convoluted and messy, the normally bright and shining pathways of thought smashed by the Master's brief attack on his consciousness. The Doctor was so easy to break, and so quick to forgive afterwards. Just what the Master liked. 

He worked his way through the ruins, methodically repairing and cleaning up whatever he could. He felt a slight twinge of guilt at his outburst. He'd done more damage than he had previously realised. 

It took him about an hour to undo the harm he'd caused. And when the Doctor woke up, he was hurt. Hurt and shocked and angry and refusing to do anything other than sit on the Master's bed and stare numbly into the distance. 

"Doctor? Please, talk to me!" The Master touched the younger Time Lord's arm and he flinched at the contact, still not breaking his stare. 

"Doctor, I don't know what to do.. Help me.." He gave a small bitter smile at the role reversal. Just an hour ago the Doctor had been in agony on the floor, begging for his help, and now it was his turn to beg. 

He cared about the Doctor more than most people and if he was damaged permanently, he wouldn't want to live with the guilt. 

The Master walked over to the piano again, sitting down with a sigh. He pushed open the lid again and started to play, a song he'd made up on Gallifrey and sung with the Doctor, or Theta as he'd been called back then. The piano part he'd invented brought back a rush of memory and sadness, making him want to scream in frustration. Everything he loved, he lost eventually. 

He played through the piece, working out all his anger and sadness into the notes, getting louder and louder until the final chord of the piece left his ears ringing with the sound and tears pooling in his eyes. 

He looked back to the Doctor on the bed. He'd moved. A small smile had crept onto his face and a tear was slowly making its way down his face. Then he spoke. 

"Koschei.. Master.. That was.. Stunning." His voice was cracked and hoarse, but it was there. It was real. 

"Koschei is fine, Doctor." He sat next to him, slipping an arm over his shoulder and smiling weakly. 

****************

Many months later, the Master was once again separated from his Doctor. By a Time Lock, no less. Impossible to enter, impossible to escape. 

He was being held under arrest for the murder of Lord President Rassilon. But, as customary, they had allowed him one luxury item in his tiny, damp cell. He'd chosen a piano. 

And every time he missed the Doctor, he would sit by it and play the song his childhood self had made up, blissfully unaware of the hardships he would later face, and he would let the tears pour unashamedly down his face.


End file.
